


Things Unknown (but longed for still)

by BBJ_3



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Armitage Hux Has Issues, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Dubious Consent, Empathy, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force-Sensitive Hux, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Pining, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Sniper Armitage Hux, The Author Regrets Nothing, Unreliable Narrator, hux may be padme reincarnated, i think of him like an obscurus, or maybe that's wishful thinking, pining Anakin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-10-20 03:17:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17614397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BBJ_3/pseuds/BBJ_3
Summary: He wants to tell Kylo to stop - to turn course now before he chases away the only possible good left in his life - in him, but Kylo has never listened to him before. Not with Leia or Luke or Han - or even Rey, so why should Hux be any different?But as Anakin loses hope for his grandson, he finds another soul worthy of redemption.





	1. Chapter 1

At his grandson's side, Anakin can do little but sigh as the force churns. It sweeps General Hux off his feet. Hanging in the air -  his lips turning blue and tears gathering on his eyes, Hux ripples through every sense the force ghost has until the past overlays with the present - leaving Padme trembling before him once more. Her death assured in the bond between them. He'll never know for certain if he killed her in that moment or if her life force was drained to ensure his survival. Either way, the monster is dead, but the blame lays squarely on Anakin's shoulders regardless. 

"Stop," he pleads.

His voice came soft, barely a breath above a whisper when once he had roared commands at the pale face and dark eyes - her eyes. Kriff, he couldn't bear to look at Kylo with Padme's deep eyes and the ruthless cold hidden behind the disguise of compassion. He could have been so much better. A lifetime at Kylo's side, and Anakin could do nothing. Praised and exalted - yet never heard. Begged for advice that was never heeded. Obi-wan had suffered similarly, and wasn't that a slap in the face? His brother - the man he loved more than any other - the man he believed had betrayed him - the man he in turned betrayed. Anakin's heart would ache; instead, the energy which forms him loosens, and he tumbles like water when a glass breaks. 

If he gathers around Hux, urging the Force to heal where it does not want to touch, no one will know. The black hole around Hux hurts. It swirls, threatening to swallow every bit of energy in its radius. The more exhausted the man becomes, the more the vicious tendrils attack - whipping here and there, but they aren't strong enough for anything living to detect them unless close care was taken, and the only care Kylo takes to Hux is to use him - exhaust him - abuse him. 

Despite how he should collapse between his broken ribs, bruised throat, and almost a week without sleep - Hux soldiers on. Though not a clone, his dogged determination reminds Anakin of those he fought beside. They had been unique in ways. In the end, however, they couldn't imagine a life beyond the limits provided to them. And the more Anakin observes - the darker the boundaries of Armitage Hux's world seem. As Armitage leans over data pads - crunching numbers and negotiating with all the grace and determination of Anakin's departed wife - the edge to him settles somewhere inside - perhaps in where his stomach once had been. A stray thought chills him then as he wonders if Armitage Hux knows what it is to be loved. 

A laundry list of allies - perhaps - maybe even a friend, if you can call someone that when they have a knife pressed into your back - but affection was always taken or sold on the rim. If a child's family didn't give them such consideration...Brendol Hux wouldn't have. Anakin had met the man once and despised him, but he had been good at his job, so the darkness and hatred in his mind had been for a purpose, and so long as the purpose aligned with the goals of the empire - what reason did Anakin have to interfere? Nobody blinked if he abused the children under his care. Rae Sloan could protest and intervene if it mattered to her. She could negotiate with a child warlord (a young gang leader who formed a murderous bunch of children to his will despite his size - despite being a paper-thin slip). Darth Vader had no time. He had lost his children. If a brutal hand could bring the galaxy to heel, what reason did he have to step in? He tries to remember if he ever even caught a glimpse of Armitage before the Empire fell, but he can't recall. 

A mix of whirling uncertainty churns within him, and between its force and the black hole at the core of Armitage, Anakin finds himself weak enough to reach out once more. Without a thought, he reaches out, brushing back the copper of Armitage's bangs which have become unstuck from that ridiculous gel. Honestly, Anakin should have learned better.

Armitage freezes. His eyes widen. He pales, and the blade in his sleeve drops into his hand, but he holds steady for a breath before his eyes shift to look toward Anakin. His sight breaks right through. Not surprising. For the strangeness of his signature, everyone had already stated his inability to feel the Force. Ghosts like Anakin would be beyond him. If his nebulous aura seems akin to some sort of hellish demon more than a man, Anakin hasn't the energy to consider the meaning. When the blade slips back up the sleeve, Anakin sits on the desk beside the work to which Armitage returns. 

"I used to wonder if being good  and being happy was even possible. The Jedi pay so much attention to being balanced that they lost sight of the people, yet when they fell, it was due to them being one side of a dichotomy, which made little sense. The Sith were evil, yet Jedi proclaimed themselves balance. Order and chaos…you would’ve preferred the Jedi,” Anakin speaks just to hear his own voice because there is no answer to his wondering. The Force has reasons, and they are neither good nor bad. They are as the Force intends, and if that means Anakin’s life was ruined, the lives saved should – in theory – mean more. Yet for all that he has been redeemed, Anakin is uncertain if he believes it to be true or if seeing his son and daughter alive and happy simply mattered more than his own happiness.

“The Jedi were a whisper; the Sith a scream. I wouldn’t have been partial to either.”

Blinking, Anakin looks up into bright green eyes. His form pulsates as the gaze fails to waver. When Anakin does not continue or respond, Armitage sighs. He rubs the bridge of his nose. Likely warding off another headache if the way his aura darkens and swirls around his head before collapsing into a stronger pull until Anakin cannot resist. Reaching out, he tilts the man’s chin up to force their eyes to meet once more. There’s something familiar in his eyes. Behind the frigid glower and glaze of exhaustion, someone heartbreaking looks back at him, and perhaps it is simply wishful thinking, but he was never good with fighting impulses.

When lips touch Force condensed, sparks fly. Heat builds, and Anakin falls into the vortex that is Armitage Hux until memories pass between them. They are impossibly alike – mothers who loved them. Men who stole them away. Fighting each day to survive. Knowing each day could be their last as they fought to bring about a better world – a world where no one would be hurt as they were.

Yet they are different. Anakin had friends (who he left behind – or even betrayed). Armitage has knives at his back. Secrets keeping them at bay like shields. While the Force favored Anakin with power – a teacher who was like his brother, Armitage had an ally who cared for his potential – and perhaps more, but she had not the time to dote on him (Rae Sloan couldn’t save him (though she stopped the abuse to some extent)).

As melodramatic as his grandson can be, Anakin always compared Kylo’s loneliness to his own. An illusion built by never feeling at home in your own skin – with dark whispers in your ears and a desperate fear of finding the ground on which he stood wasn’t stable – that it was just quicksand waiting to swallow him. Faced with the dearth of love felt by Armitage Hux, Anakin must once again chastise himself. He had so much – and for the whispers of an evil man, he threw it all away.

Even as these memories overwhelm him, Anakin finds the lusciousness of Armitage’s lips to be a far greater revelation. The black hole which surrounds him in the Force wanes until it verges on clearing – as if it is not a singularity but a dark nebula – a brilliant and fertile soil ready to birth stars. There’s darkness buried deep within. Laughter, red hair covered in blood, the smell of baking bread, a blaster’s shriek, dancing spoons – and a silent scream as all light went out in the universe.

When Anakin pulls back enough to press their foreheads together to calm the frantic beating of a heart he does not have, Armitage hums an odd tune that almost sounds like rain falling against glass.

“Are you an angel?” Armitage whispers, and the words steal away a breath which Anakin does not have, but before he can reply, the other man sighs. He shakes his head and murmurs, “I’ve been on stims too long.”

“Wait!” Anakin calls, reaching out, but his hand passes right through the general’s shoulder. When the light goes off, Anakin is left in the dark. His senses ache – raw and terrifying as the throbbing of his cock.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin can't let go. Kylo contemplates a path he's likely already burned, and the Force has plans.

He has never wanted anyone except Padme. No one – from the moment he saw her, she was the only creature in the universe he could imagine loving in that way, and while the warmth burning deep inside Anakin isn’t exactly love, it is compassion – empathy in a way he hasn’t had with most. Shielding Armitage from the world – a strange but familiar urge. The red-haired man deserves to be loved – to be protected. Padme would’ve understood, which makes the gaping guilt gnawing at him even worse and drives him back to his grandson’s side.

The boy is born to rule. Between his father’s charisma and his mother’s political intellect, he’s had all the education he needs if only he understood the importance of loyalty and compassion which tied his parents together in the first place. Though the Knights of Ren gather close, Kylo treats none of the officers of the First Order with the same care. They are fodder to him – and it will be his undoing.

When Kylo retires, Anakin paces, and when the new Supreme Leader falls back into his bed with a hand on his cock, Anakin ducks into the other room, drowning in his panic and uncertainty of his own urges until he hears Kylo cry, “Hux!”

And there’s only two options in his mind: 1) Kylo wants to take Armitage from him; or 2) his want has influenced Kylo. Either one leads to someone taking Armitage from Anakin. That hadn’t ended well the first time he had feared it, and appearing in Armitage’s quarters doesn’t help.

The man is lithe. Spread out – all pale skin and angles. He is breakable. Already, his pale body purples with bruises. A collar around his neck and along his ribs from Kylo which have yellowed as they aged. Tall – but without his carefully constructed wardrobe – he’s impossibly delicate. Sitting on the bed, Anakin traced the familiar lines and dots of Padme’s makeup over Armitage’s soft lips. She had been bare-faced when they wed. The lace of her veil and dress would be far too pale for the general’s complexion, but he remembers the blue and gray clothes she wore when they first met – when he asked her that same question. He imagines Armitage’s copper hair in long locks down his back – in braids and curls.

Perhaps it is wrong – trying to rationalize the emotion welling in his chest. Padme believed in life. She would’ve been horrified at Starkiller – even at the lives lost in its destruction and that of both Death Stars. With a family and many friends who loved her – a life where she took control (with full support) of a planet by fourteen and put her happy life at risk by standing up for those like Armitage Hux – the abused and oppressed – before they broke and succumbed, becoming the monsters.

Something draws Anakin to Armitage. He isn’t sure what (despite the odd parallels). Yearning to touch and be touched, Anakin traces fingers which should simply phase through down the soft skin of his cheek. The caress has rose-gold eyelashes fluttering. Leaning down, Anakin presses his lips to the sleeping man's in a soft peck.

Hands reach out, pulling him closer as legs spread to allow the phantom to fall between them. Thin and delicate, Armitage lay a porcelain doll beneath him enshrined in black and haloed in the copper of his red hair.

Perhaps death has made him insane, but with two long arms around his neck and their chests almost touching, Anakin cannot resist the allure of the general’s lips. Pressing a kiss to them – warmth spreads through the cold which he has unknowingly become accustomed. One of the general’s hands cups the nape of Anakin’s neck as he presses into the kiss in return. Yearning fills Anakin. Running his tongue along the younger man’s lips, he licks his way inside, pushing further into the warmth. The cold façade of Armitage Hux does not exist in this room. Even in the pale shimmer of green-blue eyes, only warmth and a desperation to be touched permeates the air and the Force.

“Please,” the general begs – still more asleep than awake.

The air around him churns in darkness, but the nebula – the field of fertility in the air where the Force threatens to birth stars echoes around him, keeping him subdued and in an almost dreamlike state. It would be cruel to not attend to what the Force demanded.

“Anything,” Anakin offers, and for the first time since Padme, he sets the universe at another’s feet. Not even the emperor had such loyalty without the weight of his beloved’s life in the balance – or the loss which left him bereft of all but hatred and darkness.

Armitage arches, pressing their cocks together. Nervous energy flashes through Anakin as he realizes how hard and aching he is against the general’s own arousal. He has not touched another in this way since Padme. Her soft features, however, disappear from his mind – overlay in a strange phantom of the man below him. The same intelligent and adoring gaze – albeit dimmed somewhat by a strange new empathy rather than the compassion which she had so selflessly offered. The general is a man with blood on his hands – he understands the weight of rule just as Padme had, and the weight of death on his conscience – just as Padme had, but he recognizes ruthlessness has a place in politics where she had placed her morality above the ends.

In many ways, that made Padme a better person than either of the men in this bed, but to see someone who compares to her in such strange ways equal to him in darkness – drawn to desperate means for idealized endings – order from chaos – order from pain – a woman who was never a slave – never abused by those who ought to have loved her – she might have empathized, but could she ever have understood? Privilege became her, and her goodness thrived beneath the adoration of those willing to throw their lives away for her own – and her refusal to let them sacrifice where she would not. She was so strong – so selfless…

Yet Anakin tears away the clothes of the man beneath him. A figment of the Force, his own fades until his naked body – in its prime before his fall – presses down into the lithe form beneath him. Each touch, each caress transfers heat between them. As if he can bring himself back to life through such contact alone, Anakin dives into his passions as reckless as he has ever been.

A thought brings lubricant from Armitage’s shower. Always so tidy and neat. Of course the man doesn't bring himself off in the comforting warmth of his bed; instead, images of pale skin and long fingers beneath warm water catch Anakin’s breath in his throat. Without question of its coming – or how the Force moves to his lover’s whims, Armitage slicks his fingers, reaching down to slide them into himself. Diving down, Anakin draws Armitage’s chin up to meet him. Their lips tangle as the Force user adds his fingers – larger than the general’s. Tight heat clenches around him, sending a growl from his lips. Giving doesn't come naturally to Anakin. Used to fighting for what he wants– almost dying for scraps – no amount of love or care from Obi-wan or Padme has ever dulled that initial urge to just take when no one can stop him.

“Beautiful,” Anakin whispers.

His fingers push into skin, bruising and marking over the injuries Kylo had left. Rage – a fire building in his gut – screams that no one would mark Armitage ever again. No one would touch him. No one would kiss him. Nobody would take this from him – not even his grandson (perhaps especially not that reckless, cruel child). He wants the whole world to see the bruises sucked by his mouth, bitten by his teeth, pressed in the wake of his touch as he grabs Armitage’s hips and pushes deep within him. Tight heat, wet and ready, parts, swallowing him whole.

“You’re mine,” Anakin swears against Armitage’s neck. His hips roll in a teasingly slow pace. Every muscle tenses, shrouded in the dark.

Wrapping a hand around Armitage’s cock, Anakin moans as Armitage’s hips rise– long legs wrapping around his waist to match him thrust for thrust. Despite the growing desperation which vibrates through every particle of his being, Anakin keeps their coupling slow. Somehow – impossible and too perfect – eternity spreads before his eyes. Even in death, the Force swears, this love would not be parted once it had reached its completion. Once the two recognize one another – which feels undoubtedly real – already done in the moment as their bodies move as one – after that union, they would never watch the other fall. Anakin feels certain Armitage would join him in the Force when his time came. Before then, the nebula of his energy would birth stars – grand and beautiful and impossible to any who could not fathom the limitlessness of the Force.

Armitage cries out – sharp and beautiful when he comes. His orgasm ridden in waves which draw Anakin to completion, and though he had no idea what evidence he would leave in his wake, Anakin’s cock twitches in desperation as he watches seed – corporeal and shimmering - slip from the sanctity of Armitage’s body. His hole pink and used and twitching as if it aches to be filled once more.

“Are you mine?” Anakin begs as he presses their foreheads together.

Sleepy blue-green eyes stare back at him, but tilting his head, Armitage places a quick kiss to the Force ghost’s lips. The nebula swirls – light sparked like lightning as atoms coalesce. Stars will form soon. The bloom of a long-denied truth echoes in the vast Force. Possibility sparks and aches and stretches.

 _What will become of us?_ Anakin wonders. His fingers sliding down the other’s chest as he presses his weight against Armitage’s, pinning the other to the mattress as they kiss – languid and softer than what either man has been capable of in years. _When you finally awaken – what will your wake be?_

Pulling away, Armitage chuckles as he slips back to sleep with a single word: “Fire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been reading too much pregnant!Hux lately. My brain kept being like "fertile nebula" and giggling while I was all like "it's just the force, there's no baby involved" but my brain's a pervert, so - no mpreg planned currently, but none of this is planned at all. 
> 
> Btw, I have a website: https://jbrendolblack.wixsite.com/jbblack and a tumblr if you want to visit me elsewhere! TTFN!

**Author's Note:**

> May continue this - may not. Don't know why it's bouncing around my head.


End file.
